e same?"

"Yes, just the same. Though I don't know what your opinion will be,"
answered the princess joyfully.

"And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the
lathe?" asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which
showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was
aware of his weaknesses.

"The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and my
geometry lessons," said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons in
geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.

When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old
prince to get up, Tikhon came to call the young prince to his father.
The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his
son's arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while
he dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned
style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew
entered his father's dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and
manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which
he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered
chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tikhon.

"Ah! here's the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?" said the old
man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tikhon was
holding fast to plait, would allow.

"You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like this
he'll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?" And he held out
his cheek.

The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He used
to say that a nap "after dinner was silver--before dinner, golden.")
He cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his thick, bushy
eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on the
spot indicated to him. He made no reply on his father's favorite
topic--making fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly
of Bonaparte.

"Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is pregnant,"
said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his father's face with
an eager and respectful look. "How is your health?"

"Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from
morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well."

"Thank God," said his son smiling.

"God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on," he continued, returning to
his hobby; "t